Start Selling Your Music on MySpace

[Tarekith]

please

[hacktheplanet]

This looks neat! I highly doubt Myspace would try to fuck songwriters out of their money by not paying them - It would be marketing suicide at this point. If they were MTV, things would be different. MTV sometimes doesn't pay unknown artists to use their music because having a song featured on MTV is payment enough. I, for one, would LOVE if it Myspace somehow used my music in one of their advertisements without asking! It's free promotion.

Myspace is a business. They retain the right to pay artists any amount they desire. If you don't want to sell your music on Myspace, fine. Sell it somewhere else. Understand though, that selling 1,000 songs and getting $0.30 each is better than selling 200 songs and getting $0.50 each!

Whenever you post a track onto Myspace, they do retain licensing rights and as I understand their usage agreement, continue to hold rights even if you delete the song from your profile. They would be able to use your music however they want and would not ever have to pay you royalties. This sounds scary, but I am sure it's just so that they can avoid lawsuits and legal hassles. Again, I HIGHLY doubt they'd do something underhanded and attempt to do something like release a compilation CD without at least asking songwriters.

However, if you plan to sell any tracks anywhere, OBTAIN A COPYRIGHT. It's very easy in the US. All you do is download a form from www.copyright.gov, fill it out, and send it to them with your music and a check for $45 and will protect you from anyone ripping off your music. Remember that Timbaland thing were he stole from an unsigned artist? I'm willing to bet that the original artist didn't have copyrights for his material. Yes, it's backhanded, but there isn't any way Timbaland would lose the lawsuit since he obtained the copyright for the track before the original artist did.

[rasputin]

In the current environment, people trying to make money off music are competing with a million free legal and illegal tracks. So I agree you have to be flexible on what you're willing to accept and what not.

This looks neat! I highly doubt Myspace would try to fuck songwriters out of their money by not paying them - It would be marketing suicide at this point. If they were MTV, things would be different. MTV sometimes doesn't pay unknown artists to use their music because having a song featured on MTV is payment enough. I, for one, would LOVE if it Myspace somehow used my music in one of their advertisements without asking! It's free promotion.

Even without credit? Then no one would know it was your track...

Myspace is a business. They retain the right to pay artists any amount they desire. If you don't want to sell your music on Myspace, fine. Sell it somewhere else. Understand though, that selling 1,000 songs and getting $0.30 each is better than selling 200 songs and getting $0.50 each!

True enough dat.

Whenever you post a track onto Myspace, they do retain licensing rights and as I understand their usage agreement, continue to hold rights even if you delete the song from your profile. They would be able to use your music however they want and would not ever have to pay you royalties. This sounds scary, but I am sure it's just so that they can avoid lawsuits and legal hassles. Again, I HIGHLY doubt they'd do something underhanded and attempt to do something like release a compilation CD without at least asking songwriters.

I think it's scary to assume a corporation would do the "right" thing if there isn't a legal stick over their head forcing them to.
That kind of claus bothered me about soundclick, garageband and acidplanet, which otherwise would have been cool venues for unsigned artists...

However, if you plan to sell any tracks anywhere, OBTAIN A COPYRIGHT. It's very easy in the US. All you do is download a form from www.copyright.gov, fill it out, and send it to them with your music and a check for $45 and will protect you from anyone ripping off your music. Remember that Timbaland thing were he stole from an unsigned artist? I'm willing to bet that the original artist didn't have copyrights for his material. Yes, it's backhanded, but there isn't any way Timbaland would lose the lawsuit since he obtained the copyright for the track before the original artist did.

It's expensive but worth it if you're worried about ripoffs. Also remember you can copyright an "album" with one fee--lot cheaper than registering 20 works separately.

Remember that your songs are technically copyrighted the minute you create them. What's described above is technically REGISTERING the copyright which gives you ironclad proof of it should you have to go to court.

Let's hope you don't have to. Suppose some crappy little outfit steals your song and uses it for some ad. You spend all the time and money to bring suit, maybe you'll even win. THEN you have to collect damages if any are awarded. If you know the entertainment or advertising industry, I think you can guess what the odds of that happening are. Probably the best thing to do would be to leverage the theft in your favor: get the best copy of the ad or steal that you can findand use it in your OWN showreel, website or promotional material...

(Disclaimer: I am not advocating anything illegal in this post; the above material is for entertainment purposes only.)

r.

[nobbystylus]

What actually is the cut on each transaction? Beatport is a 50/50, Juno is a 50/50 (60/40 in favour of the artist after a certain number of uploads), Stompy is a 50/50..

is it better or worse than most online distributors?

[nobbystylus]

ok ... i see now..

Sell Your Music Online
Create a SNOCAP MyStore and sell your music directly to your fans on MySpace and any other website you control. You set the price; SNOCAP deducts only $0.39 per download to cover our costs.